'Hey baaaaaaaaaby -- is it hot in this yoga class or is it just you?'
Damn, yoga can be SEXY. And it's not just because it makes you all hot and sweaty and capable of bending over backwards really easily. Nor is it because of a great downward doggy style or rising early to salute the sun. Okay, enough of the innuendos. There's plenty of good reasons to associate sex and yoga - and love, too. Yogis generally have better stamina and flexibility. There's nothing like being able to put your legs behind your head and various other contortions in the bedroom, huh?
Yet to be a good lover is also to be present.
I'm sure we've all thought of shopping lists and projects mid coitus, realizing we aren't truly there for our lover. We might also lack the ability to truly give ourselves over to the physical act of love because of past traumas, whether sexual or otherwise. We might even be a little bored of our sex lives, repeating the same actions over and over with the same person so that it feels mundane, like flossing ones teeth every day. There's a whole heap of reasons why our sex lives might be a little less - well, desirable, because our minds, spirits and bodies lack the unity needed to truly experience love and desire in the fullest way possible.
(Image Source)
Whilst some yogic traditions might argue that desire and wanting should be observed rather than a cause for reaction, there's a better argument for the joy of taking part in the sexual realms of this life experience. The Indian sage Vātsyāyana wrote as the last line in the famous Kama Sutra that:
“So long as lips shall kiss,and eyes shall see,so long lives this ,and this gives life to thee.”It sounds beautifully romantic, but I think it goes further than that. For most of us, sex is a big part of our life - we can philosophically eschew desire as something inherently bad, but I've never believed that. It's only when it gets poisoned by nurture that we shy away from it or fear it. Sure, life has taught us that sex can be confusing, lonely or traumatic. Yet desire and it's expression in the sexual act is also pure joy, and something that human beings are designed to do, both with bodies and hearts. If you've ever experienced the full beauty and earth moving awesomeness and connection to a partner, you'll know what I mean. It's something that we cherish and long for, for all our lives.
So, how can yoga help our sex lives? How can we get involved with the joy of this creative force that drives the entire world? Here are some reasons. I'd love to hear yours - has yoga improved YOUR sex life? What about your love life?
Yes, Yoga Helps us Be More Flexible
On a basic level, yoga makes us more supple, strong and flexible - needed for hours of bedroom aerobics. Whilst we might be able to fuck from dawn to dusk or dusk to dawn when we're young, we need to be able to do that when we're old, too. If you're fifteen and reading this, I'm sorry to say that even your grandma has sex. Yoga will help her be supple in the bedroom for all her years - not just until she's twenty five. Oh yeah. And Granddad too.
Yoga Helps Us Bring Energy to the Pelvis
And we all know what the pelvis is for, amirite? If you're familiar with the yogic lock mulabanda, the 'root lock' or energy centre in the pelvic floor, helping us create attentiveness in the supportive muscles there. Physically, it helps create stablity and a safe base for movements of the spine. We can compare it to Kegel exercises, which for woman is like holding onto your wee (you can do it now and no one would notice..). This helps strengthen your PC muscle, which is right deep within the pelvis and is connected to our genitals - so if blood's flowing there, then so is our energy. We can 'grip' our man down there - woot! For men, mulbandha helps by helping them control the muscles in that area, which can help them with premature ejaculation.
Bridge pose, or satu bandhasana, helps activate mula bandha, and is a great pose to improve your sex life! (plus, it improves back strength, is great for menstruation pain, and all sorts of other bonuses) Image Source
Yoga Helps us Be Body Positive
One of the coolest things to come out of the modern yoga movement is selling yoga as 'body positive'. Fat, thin, disabled, skinny, black, white, old, young - every body is a yoga body. Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to look like the cover of a magazine to do yoga. It's a movement that promotes radical self acceptance.
It's hard to give yourself over to sex if you haven't made peace with your own body, feeling as if we have to reach some unattainable standard of beauty to attract the opposite sex or feel sexy in the boudoir. Yoga can help us feel confident in our own skin, and when we do that, we attain freedom to be who we are under (or on top of) the sheets - even with the lights on. And that's damn sexy.
By extension, if we're in love with our own bodies, it's far more easy to be accepting of the flaws of others, too. We're only human, after all. Beautifully human. Lovingly, gorgeously human. So as your partner ages, and the shine of youth is tarnished, we're capable of seeing a different kind of resplendence because we've been able to see it beneath our own perceived flaws. That's going to sustain our relationships in times of sickness and health, til death do us part.
Yoga Teaches Us How to 'Be'
Through breath, yoga teaches us to move away from the thinking mind to inhabit our bodies fully, moment to moment. It is the thinking mind and neurological processes that cause us to become tense, angry or afraid or any other emotion that might creep into the bedroom. To truly let go of all the things that hold us back in the full beauty of our being with someone we love and into being lips, hands, eyes, tongue in a precious moment to moment experience is extraordinary. Imagine if every time a thought came, such as: 'Will he like me naked?' or 'I am too tired for this' you took a breath, and returned to your skin?
Through yogic practice, we learn to let go of what doesn't serve us. Yoga has had extraordinary effects on those that have suffered sexual abuse, allowing them to come back into a fully lived body that no longer returns to trauma and no longer holds in in muscles, fascia, memory. Whilst it might be a long process, it's worth a shot. It doesn't even matter what yoga you do - whether it's full on tantra or kundalini, vinyasa flow or yin, the linking of breath, mind and body helps us step into 'being' and away from all the shackles that bind us.
Yoga Teaches Us To Truly Love
In Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, he says in 1.33
“Maitri karuna mudita upekshanam sukha duhka punya apunya vishayanam bhavanatah chitta prasadanam.”I'm not sure a happy marriage or relationship can have good sex if it doesn't cultivate compassion and good will towards one another.“In relationships, the mind becomes purified by cultivating feelings of friendliness towards those who are happy, compassion for those who are suffering, goodwill towards those who are virtuous, and indifference or neutrality towards those we perceive as wicked or evil.”
Yoga also strips back all the stuff that prevents us loving ourselves. When we realise that our essential core is love, then we realise that that is true of everyone else as well. This makes it easier to be kind and compassionate to others, and makes our first reaction love and compassion over all other emotions. When that happens, sex becomes far better because it's an act of loving, too, rather than just getting your rocks off, and rolling over into the wet spot of loneliness and emptiness.
Yoga Teaches Us to Show Up & Do the Hard Work
Relationships can be tough - if you're thinking love is meant to be easy, you're in for a shock! Patanjali also said that steady commitment (abhyasa) and devotion (vairagya) bring about success in yoga, and that's also true for love. I've been to yoga classes where I pretty much thought I was going to die in a puddle of sweat, but that passes, and I always feel awesome afterwards. Yoga teaches us to ride out those hard bits, knowing the good stuff is coming. In fact, you learn to see the bad stuff differently, seeing it's benefit even in the turmoil.
Iyengar said that yoga poses begin right at the moment you want them to stop. There's been lots of times in my relationship with my man that we have thought: 'whoa. I'm not sure we can keep going like this' - and then the breakthrough happens, and we're more in love than ever. We learn more about ourselves and what we're capable of when times are tough than when we're coasting through life. And the more tough times you have, the more in love you get - because you've been there for each other, and ridden it out, and come out shining and new.
Yoga teaches us to understand the importance of vulnerability
I can't ever listen to a particular yoga mantra in class without wanting to cry. It kept happening last year, particularly at a time when I was feeling through some full on emotional pain that I had to let go of to be who I needed to be. Every time I heard Krishna Das' 'Hanuman Das' I sobbed through my practice - my heart just filled to bursting, a strange mix of pleasure and pain that I began to realise was vulnerability. My heart was open and it HURT.
Yet I soon learnt this hurt was a GOOD hurt. You have to stay with those feels, rather than run away from them or medicate them. They're what make you stronger, and take the risks that open you up to opportunities and the joys of life.
One of the stories of Hanuman, the monkey god, is that he took a huge leap over the ocean (hence, the yogic splits called hanumanasana) to rescue Sita, the beloved wife of Rama, to whom Hanuman was entirely devoted. Initially overwhelmed by the sheer impossibility of his task, he didn't let it overwhelm him, and did it anyway. Though this is about devotion, it's also about courage, and grace. It's through his devotion that the monkey God remembers he is strong - so deep is his devotion that when he tears the flesh from his chest to show Sita that written on his muscles and bones and heart is the word 'Ram'.
Krishna Das said
“It’s inconceivable to us the devotion that Hanuman has for Ram. He has no ego. He does all he can to serve Ram, but never sees himself as the doer. He lives only to serve love. Imagine that. We spend nearly all of our time thinking. Yet here is Hanuman with no thoughts. Just guided by his love for Ram. He knows sometimes they appear separate, but he also knows they are one. Maharaj-ji would sometimes just look at us and hold up one finger to remind us.”Das also said that we chant Hanuman Chalisa to remind Hanuman who HE is rather than in praise - and by doing so, we're reminded who WE are - beings that can be devoted, selfless, gentle, courageous, wise, compassionate and strong. By singing to Hanuman (there's a lot of different mantras) we ask him to remove all the obstacles so we can know this about ourselves. Sorrow leaves and abundance enters.
To me, Hanuman's story also reminds us that leaps of faith we need to trust that though things are terrifying and scary, and can hurt like hell. But you have to be courageous, or you're not truly living in the way you should be, because you've been given this incredible gift of life. You have to leave behind all those painful memories, rejections, fears - all those things that just hold you back.
This is required in love too - we need those leaps of faith and a courageous heart even when we feel vulnerable and worried we might reveal something the other won't like, or that it won't work out. It's what led me to the other side of the world to be with a man I'd known for three days - our hearts were wide open and terrified but we did it because we trusted in the vulnerability. People say to us: 'you guys were so brave and you took such a risk!' - but how do you know you're brave unless you have that feeling of discomfort, vulnerability and uncertainty?
And that's when love truly enters - when you strip back the skin and the flesh to reveal love written on your bones, your muscles, your heart.
This post was in response to the Natural Medicine "LOVE IT UP" Challenge. You have until Valentine's Day on February 14th to submit your own response - go check out the entry guidelines here. There's up to 30 Steem worth of prizes on offer. As judge of the contest, I can't enter, but I'd absolutely love to read yours!
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